Current location:	Love's Deathbed
Current mood:	thoughtful
Current music:	Today was a good day

Predator and Perdition, Parasite and Prey
DEDICATED TO THE BLESSED MEMORY OF ALEXANDER SOLZHENITZYN (RIP)

TWO PERSPECTIVES:

"Standing there to be counted through the gate of an evening, back in camp after a whole day of buffeting wind, freezing cold and an empty belly, the zek longs for his ladleful of scalding hot watery evening soup as for rain in time of drought. He could knock it back in a single gulp. For the moment that ladleful means more to him than freedom, more than his whole past life, more than whatever life is left to him."

"Shukhov felt pleased with life as he went to sleep. A lot of good things had happened that day. He hadn't been thrown in the hole. The gang hadn't been dragged off to Sotsgorodok (Socialist Settlement). He'd swiped the extra gruel at dinnertime. The foreman had got a good rate for the job. He'd enjoyed working on the wall. He hadn't been caught with the blade at the searchpoint. He'd earned a bit from Tsezar that evening. And he'd bought his tobacco.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"



I was offered a really high paying job not too long ago. It was as a district manager for a company. This was a "payday loan" and "title loan" company. People who are in desperate trouble financially, go to these companies and take out loans with a car title as collateral. The interest rates are astronomical. The companies have the customers by the short and curlys because they know that people do not want to get their cars taken away. They also make a profit almost all the time because they rarely give more money to the borrower than they know they are going to collect in the first month or two in interest. They know that people will not be able to pay them back and get out of trouble. They know that all but the very rich are simply one major illness, one divorce, or one serious job loss away from ruin. I turned the job down on principle. I simply could not be such a pariah on society. I did not want to suck people dry.

When I worked in a bar in Ft. Lauderdale, near Port Everglades, there were Merchant Marines, senior citizens on social security, and young sailors from the navy that used to come into the bar. If they had a full wallet the bouncer used to let everyone know, and we were supposed to make sure that money was spent in the bar. I hated that job, and I got into so much trouble on many occasions because if a guy was very old, and/or very young I would always tell them to go to the bathroom and put their large bills in their shoe and NEVER let anyone that worked there know they had the money they had. I did not want to suck them dry of all they had, nor did I want anyone else to either.

I guess nice girls finish last. I have a small business. It was a lot better until around March when it just seemed to drop. The economy has finally taken its toll on people. People are finding themselves homeless or close to it. They are having their utilities disconnected, cars repossessed, and their houses are going into foreclosure. I see them cry as they walk into the payday loan store at the corner (are they on every corner now?), hoping to put off for one more week-- the inevitable. These are the same people who voted for Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich and Sonny Perdue and screamed at the homeless people "Get a Job you bum".

I know this, but even so, I still feel bad for them. Especially the kids, and the single moms. They will file into the welfare office and find out that they are surrounded by white people just like them, and a few black people and hispanics. They will look around for the "cadillac driving, gold jewelry wearing, welfare moms" that they have been taught to think of as those who get their "entitlement" there, and they will rarely find them. I'm sure it will be quite a surprise when they find out that the amount of money they are going to get is equal to what they spent on their dog grooming and fingernails in any given month. Now, they will have to survive on that amount all month, with no nails, and no groomer, and worse....no dog. They will get outraged eventually. The protests have already started. People who have NEVER gone to a protest in their lives are joining NACA.

I'm not sure how to feel about it. I could feel some sense of satisfaction. I could spit on them and yell "GET A JOB". Should I smile and act snarky because they chose to measure their lives by the toys they have and not by the quality of their lives and the time they had to make it count? I could do all the things i saw them do to others who were in a bad way. I can also choose to forgive them, and have mercy, and hold out a hand to help where ever I can, when ever I can.

That is why I did not take the Payday loan job. I don't think they could ever pay me enough to do evil to people who are not able to absorb it....the payday loan people, the sub-prime mortgage people, the big businesses, they will all be bailed out or bought out. The people who work for them may suffer, but the upper level will not. The government will bail them out just like they have Fannie and Freddy, and to do this they keep printing more and more money. This devalues the dollar. Who does that hurt? The average person that's who.

I cannot bear to see the tears in a woman's eyes as she leaves her home -- her dream -- in front of the neighbors --with the kids and with tears running down her face. I know that maybe I will be homeless (I will be reminded that I could have had a job). Maybe my kids will see that. Maybe we won't be able to eat. Yet, one thing I know, I will not participate in the destruction of the lives of average everyday people. I will not take that kind of job. I will not take their money in their distress. Nor will I resent what they have worked for, and I will not tell them how stupid they were to sign those mortgages and borrow that money. I'm sure they know that by now. I will simply try to help....even if it's just to listen. In Ivan Denisovich, no one condemn Shukhov's stealing more gruel, or getting past the guards with a secreted blade, and for similar reasons I don't really care if the Exxons of the world, or the Providians, or the IndyMacs, or Bear Stearns get a dime of their money from these people. I do care about regular people. I care about the shame in a mans face --the tears of a woman...and the babe in her arms...and the love in their hearts.